Month: December 2011

Knowledgable, often cranky and sometimes downright eccentric, Barry Weiss brings his unique touch of personality to the bidding action of Storage Wars. Barry recalled in an interview that he probably started attending auctions at age 15, so hunting for modern day treasure is clearly a passion of his to last him into his 60’s. Mr. Weiss is an inveterate collector and something of a pack rat, but he says what interests him most are the things he hasn’t yet seen before.

He’s always on the hunt for something exciting, new and different. Barry loves everything from vintage cars to choppers to outlandish clothing. Barry has a flowing humorous patter and the gravely chopped rhythm of his voice draws ample comparison to Jack Nicholson. Capable of losing his temper and nutting off, especially when he overpays for a crappy unit, Barry is described as being friendly and mellow off the set.

Dealing in antiques for this many years, the Storage Wars star has amassed an estimated net worth of $7 million. From watching storage wars, you might not always be able to tell that Barry is sitting on that kind of green, though. He gets plenty testy whenever he bids too aggressively on a storage shed only to find it’s full of junk.

What about Barry Weiss’s more bizarre auction buying tactics? In early episodes he was noted for bringing a pair of genuine night vision goggles to peer more deeply into units up for sale.

What about the time he consulted a professional psychic in order to determine the likelihood of a big score?

Whether they’re all just for showmanship or simply intended to distract his competitors, Barry’s tactics have definitely earned him the stamp of “that guy”.

This picture shows what Barry’s all about. Despite all the tense bidding wars, he genuinely has fun on set, perhaps more so than any other buyer.

Here, Barry’s seen wearing his trademark skeleton gloves in preparation for some serious unit picking.

In California, Barry has been spotted at Brandi and Jarrod’s Now and Then thrift store meeting fans of Storage Wars and signing autographs.

One thing’s for sure. Barry’s got his own sense of style. Equally comfortable in plaid or skeleton printed sweatshirts, this Storage Wars star isn’t afraid to do his own thing, on or off set. Although Barry doesn’t quite need the money anymore, he does use his influence and deep pockets to search the local storage auction scene for the best collectibles and antiques to add to his inventory.

Get up close and personal with this video of Barry showing off one of his many antique cars. This is uncensored Barry at his finest, and not for the faint of heart:

When Jarrod Schulz shows up to an auction to lay down some cash, Brandi is always there to ensure he’s making good decisions. Helping to run their joint thrift store, Brandi is primarily concerned with minimizing risks on big auction units and making sure that Jarrod doesn’t spend them both to the poor house.

Brandi’s birthday is May 16 and she is thought to be in her mid 30’s. Brandi and Jarrod have two children together and they started a thrift store that they feed with their auction purchases after they began to run out of room in their home to store treasures.

Brandi is sometimes criticized by viewers for being overbearing and keeping Jarrod on a short leash, but she is only trying to make sure that their fledgling business succeeds. It’s unclear whether this dynamic is rooted in reality or intentionally played up for the show to give the characters more depth.

Although Brandi and Jarrod have reportedly been together for 12 years and have children together, they are not actually married. Nevertheless, they have an interesting on-screen relationship and seem to balance one another out well.

In being labeled the “Young Guns” of the storage auction buying crew, Storage Wars is indicating that Brandi and Jarrod have the least financial capital of any of the other central buyers.

There are many costs associated with opening and running your own auction-supplied thrift store, which explains some of Brandi’s trepidation regarding Jarrod’s purchases. She keeps close watch on every transaction to make sure they won’t be bankrupted.

Most of the time you could describe Brandi’s demeanor as skeptical and cautious. She tries to tamp down Jarrod’s excitement when it comes to buying units because he can sometimes let his enthusiasm for the unit outpace his self-control and wind up taking a loss.

Case in point, the episode where Jarrod spends $1,700 on a unit because it’s full of vintage toys that are still in their original boxes.

Unfortunately, the toys themselves only end up being worth $300. Brandi is always trying to buy in reference to their thrift store and looking for items she knows they can turn a profit on, such as still boxed electronics.

On the flipside, sometimes Brandi is an overly reserved bidder and can miss out on bigger opportunities because or her lower tolerance for risk. In this way, Brandi and Jarrod balance each other out pretty well. It’s also worth noting that Jarrod doesn’t always take Brandi’s advice, to his own detriment!

Brandi and Jarrod have both expressed the fact that their appearance on Storage Wars has given a slight boost to their thrift store, called “Now and Then” and located in Orange county, California. However, it hasn’t yet blown their sales profits through the roof.

This is alright with Brandi, who says she’s more interested in slow, steady and sustainable growth over time so they can support their family.

Their thrift store is roughly 3,000 square feet and if you visit it when you’re in the area you’ll find all kinds of things for sale, ranging from furniture to electronics with everything in between. Since Brandi and Jarrod both work at the store, they’ve noted that many people come by just to see them and get a chance to talk with Storage War stars.

You’d be surpised how often people ask whether or not Storage Wars is fake or for real – is it staged? Do people stuff the units beforehand to allow the pickers to find all the best loot?

Just who are these auction unit buying weirdos we see each episode and is this whole thing legit or not? Yes and No – yes the storage auctions themselves are real and not staged, and NO, you will not have the same experience as these auction hunters when you go out to start buying delinquent lockers near you.

The secret behind Storage Wars is volume. An insane level of volume. The amount of storage auctions the crew is filming at any given point is staggering and most casual or amateur storage auction hunters just won’t be able to keep up the same pace due to job and family related time contraints.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen plenty of claims on youtube and storage auction blogs that its possible to prove storage wars is all a sham if you just carefully watch the editing.

I think the truth behind Storage Wars is that there’s a little bit of everything going on. Yes, the show is highly stylized and designed to get folks excited about these sales.

No, you’re not going to find a vintage coca-cola machine in the next locker you buy that’s worth 40K on eBay. Yes, the show is going out of its way to provide exciting storage buying entertainment by filling the episodes with vibrant and interesting characters like Jarrod Schulz, Brandi Passante and Dave the Mogul.

Yes, Storage Wars is intentionally overselling the possible, but rare, sweet loot that can be found in public storage auctions.

So, perhaps the best answer to the question of whether or not Storage Wars is staged is “Yes and No”. Yes, there is some indirect deception going on here in the name of good entertainment.

But let’s face it. If Storage Wars showed you the true real-life frequency with which you find great scores in storage lockers up for sale, we probably wouldn’t want to tune in as much. At the end of the day, it makes for great TV, which is why it’s so successful.

In the meantime, would be auction buyers are cautioned to carry more realistic expectations into their own local storage buying efforts. You definitely can make money doing this, and you definitely could find some of the sweet loot they come across, but you’re not going to find something to scream about in each and every unit.

Now, there are plenty of people on Yahoo Answers that are convinced storage wars totally fake – that every united is pre-loaded with goodies and all the action is scripted. There are also reports that visitors to storage wars filming sites have seen unit tampering go down and that attendees have been coached by the crew to do certain things to up the show value such as arguing over a unit.

On the flipside of the coin, having heard from some of the managers that oversee properties featured on the show, it’s not that simple of an open and shut case. The fact of the matter is that truly delinquent and legally repossessed storage lockers cannot be tampered with in most states unless the facility, its managers and their parent company all want to open themselves up for a big nasty lawsuit.

Of course, it’s not impossible to conceive of crafty film crews borrowing an open locker at a facility to prep up with the latest goods from Costco, but it’s just not as simple to mess around with legitimate storage units as everyone assumes. If Storage Wars were to be a total fabrication, they would be prepping and then later opening entirely free and clear storage lockers borrowed from facilities just for that purpose.

Today I’m going to take a step back from storage auctions to mention another great way to make extra money – online. It’s a revenue sharing website called Infobarrel.com. I’ve been writing for Infobarrel for about a year and a half now and every month I make the bulk of my residual income from my articles there.

Although I’ve tried a variety of online writing outlets, IB has always given me the fastest and greatest return. In addition, I can say without reservation that Infobarrel has the absolute best online community and the most responsive and beneficent administrators, hands down. Everything I learned about how to maximize my online writing profits came from other members taking their time to help me in the forums, and from the administrators themselves responding to questions and providing helpful tips. Kevin and Ryan, the owners, are both class acts and are always working hard to take care of their writers and maximize everyone’s earnings.

Why Am I Mentioning This?

I’ve noticed that a lot of storage auction hunters are sharp, well-rounded people with a keen eye and I figured that at least some of you guys would like to start cultivating another monthly revenue stream in addition to buying up public storage auctions.

All you have to do to start making money with Infobarrel is sign up here. You’ll need a Google Adsense account in order to get paid. If you don’t already have one, you should create a blogger.com website about a topic of your choosing and flesh it out with a couple of articles before you apply for Adsense. Once you’ve got an Adsense account, you can start producing original content on Infobarrel and earning lifetime residuals from it! Best of luck and don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you might have.

Today’s Guest Post comes to us from Brian Barwig of Selfstoragefinders.com. Self Storage Finders is a resource for people looking for affordable storage solutions across the country. Just pop in your zipcode and see the best storage facilities in your neighborhood!

Self Storage Auctions as Small Stakes Gambling

A few weeks ago a man from San Jose bid $1,100 for a storage unit which was being auctioned off. No doubt he thought he had good potential to make money on the unit but little did he know what he was in for. Among other items in the storage unit he found $500,000 worth of gold coins stashed in a Rubbermaid bin. Stories like these are becoming more prevalent with the explosion of Reality TV shows like Pawn Stars, American Pickers and Storage Wars. Although storage auctions have been around for decades, people are just beginning to find out what they are all about and how exciting they can be.

Storage auctions happen every week all over the country but until recently were not very trendy. The popular TV show “Storage Wars” has made storage auctions the new craze and everyone wants a piece of the pie. The reality is most self storage owners do not want to sell the contents of storage units and only do it as a last resort. The increase in storage auctions over the past several years has much to do with the state of the economy because people don’t have the money to pay for the storage unit and thus it gets auctioned off.

The auctions are much like penny slots, small stakes gambling which sometimes pays off. There are many different types of bidders with differing motivations for attending auctions. Some are retired, some bored, some looking for a big payoff and some as a job. More often than not, the contents of an auction allow bidders to break even or stay just ahead, but what keeps them coming back is the anticipation of hitting the jackpot.

The process of storage auctions is a bit different from storage facility to storage facility but most follow a similar script. Renters of abandoned storage units have three months to pay their self storage bill or the units can be auctioned off. Prior to the auction, the doors of the unit are opened for about 10 minutes and no one can enter – what you see from the door is what you get. Some storage facilities use silent bids while others have a bidding war aloud. No employees can bid and no one knows who owns the storage unit. In addition, all personal items such as documents, pictures, photo albums, journals etc. must be returned so they can be given back to their rightful owners.

If you are looking for storage auctions near you, there are several good storage auction finders online which detail storage auction times, dates and rules. You can bet storage auctions are bound to become even more crowded and popular as new buyers flock in to find their jackpot.

Do you want to start attending local storage auctions in your area? Interested in making some extra cash on your weekends by buying up delinquent storage lockers? Storage auctions are an excellent way to put more money in your pocket and to have fun while doing it.

Since the state law requires that self storage facilities hold public storage auctions, anyone can attend and there’s no fee to get in! Everything you find inside the storage locker you win is yours to keep – excepting personal items of no commercial value such as family photo albums and the like.

Great, but how do I find these public storage auctions? You have two main options, you can whip out your yellow pages or google search bar and start calling up every storage facility near you, or you can subscribe to premium storage auction listings for your state. Premium storage auction listings will cost you a small monthly fee, which will could be as low as $5 or more depending on where you live. This is because storage auction list companies charge depending on the size of the state – more facilities to cover means more work on their part.

To get a 10% discount on your storage unit auction list subscription, use this coupon code: Auctionkings1.

Visit Storage Unit Auction List and make sure to pop in your coupon code: Auctionkings1 during checkout to receive your discount! You can also call the friendly folks from Storage Unit Auction List at 1-800-353-8417 for personal assistance. To find out more about how this service works, just click here. When you subscribe to a listing service, you’ll receive a complete local profile each month that will look like this:

Phone

Address

City

County

State

Auction Date and Time #1

3368548330

111 EDWARDIA DRIVE

Greensboro

Guilford

NC

Jan 12 2010 10:00 AM

2527472102

65 Perry Drive

Snow Hill

Greene County

NC

Jan 27 2010 3:00 PM

9195756646

205 W East Street

Butner

Wake

NC

Feb 03 2010 2:00 PM

9192698200

4730 Old Us Highway 64 E

Zebulon

Wake

NC

Jan 07 2011 8:00 AM

8284375005

W Us Highway 70

Morganton

Burke

NC

Jan 07 2011 10:00 AM

7046430870

7233 South Blvd

Charlotte

Mecklenburg

NC

Jan 07 2011 2:00 PM

9192312220

3410 Middle Branch Rd

Raleigh

Wake

NC

Jan 07 2011 10:00 PM

3366673358

912 River St

Wilkesboro

Wilkes

NC

Jan 08 2011 10:00 AM

7046420460

3218 S Main St

Salisbury

Rowan

NC

Jan 08 2011 10:00 AM

9196931043

202 Roxboro Rd

Oxford

Granville

NC

Jan 08 2011 10:30 AM

The key to making reliable money from public storage auctions is dealing in volume – the more units you can win and flip for profit, the more money you will make. This sounds simple on paper, but it can be more challenging to implement this strategy, especially if you are new to the exciting world of repossessed locker sales. Speaking from the perspective of a storage property manager, I can tell you that the lowest phone calls on the totem-pole of our attention are those that come from curious auction hunters.

It’s not that we don’t care about people that call our facility, it’s just that we have so many other calls and customers to deal with first. For one thing, we have people walking into the office all throughout the day to inquire about units, to settle their monthly bills and to ask questions regarding delivery and off-loading logistics. Our tenants have to take first priority – they’re our paying guests after all. When we fire up the answering machine at the end of the day to find a bunch of calls from people asking about when our next auction is going to be held, we might have time to call a few back.

Most of the time these calls just fall by the wayside. That’s why it can really help to have all the legwork done for you, so that you can focus on lining up the public storage auctions in your area and knocking them out one by one. You get to focus on what’s really important – attending auctions and concentrating on outbidding everyone else.

To get a 10% discount on your storage unit auction list subscription, use this coupon code: Auctionkings1.

Visit Storage Unit Auction List and make sure to pop in your coupon code: Auctionkings1 during checkout to receive your discount! You can also call the friendly folks from Storage Unit Auction List at 1-800-353-8417 for personal assistance.

Kentucky auction hunters can take advantage of frequent storage auctions and good general turn over for passerby that rent a locker, fill it full of goods and then reneg on their payments while out of state. The Bluegrass state has about 750 self storage facilities that may come up with active auctions in a given year, and this diverse profile of storage companies, coupled with a high rate of repossessed storage lockers, leads to anywhere from 30-50 auctions in a given month! There’s plenty here to keep a hungry auction buyer satisfied and raking in the good units.

To get a 10% discount on your storage unit auction list subscription, use this coupon code: Auctionkings1.

Visit Storage Unit Auction List and make sure to pop in your coupon code: Auctionkings1 during checkout to receive your discount! You can also call the friendly folks from Storage Unit Auction List at 1-800-353-8417 for personal assistance. To find out more about how this service works, just click here.

Obviously, the rural areas outside of the cities are a bit slower on turning around delinquent storage lockers, because they need only do so when they’re at full capacity and need to free up space for paying customers. Otherwise, who needs the hassle, right? You can find plenty of good locker sales in Kentucky’s major cities, however, including Lexington and Covington.

Lexington is famous for its horse racing and the gambling that goes with it, so it’s little wonder that the same folks would be interested in taking a chance on a storage unit that could be full of lucrative goods, commercial equipment or valuables like jewelry and electronics.

If you live inside or near Lexington or Covington you can expect to find at least a couple of storage unit sales per week, which will provide you plenty to go on if you are launching a small business or re-selling what you find in the auctions for profit. There are also some great storage sales that occur near Bowling Green, Owensboro, Somerset and Frankfurt. You just have to know where to look!

Ordering premium storage unit list subscriptions will keep you up to date with every repossessed locker sale in the state of Kentucky. You can either pay a small fee per month, or you can lock in the biggest savings by subscribing for an entire year and getting the maximum discount possible. Every month, you’ll receive a complete drill-down of every upcoming sale in Kentucky, including all the wealthiest counties like Shelby, Anderson, Woodford and Oldham counties.

Each month’s list will include everything you need to be first on the scene and maximize your auction buying profits, including the facility name and contact number, its complete address, the date and starting time of the sale, and sometimes even a general description of the goods to be found inside. Imagine having everything laid out for you and never having to make another phone call – all you have to do is pick a lunch spot in between auctions.

Many professional storage auction buyers find that these listings help them focus on what really matters for making money with storage sales – buying low and re-selling high. The more free time you have, the higher the volume of goods and equipment you can move. The higher the volume of equipment you can resell, the greater your actual profits. Best of luck with your storage auction unit hunting in Kentucky.

To get a 10% discount on your storage unit auction list subscription, use this coupon code: Auctionkings1.

Visit Storage Unit Auction List and make sure to pop in your coupon code: Auctionkings1 during checkout to receive your discount! You can also call the friendly folks from Storage Unit Auction List at 1-800-353-8417 for personal assistance. To find out more about how this service works, just click here.